Yahoo looks to expand into daily fantasy sports

Yahoo has recently announced that it plans to expand and compete in the burgeoning daily fantasy sports betting scene in the United States. The digital media company aims to be the third biggest player in the field.

Yahoo’s Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer announced the future product launch during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. Mayer adds that the digital media giant aims to release the new product by the third quarter of 2015.

Founded back in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo then named as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web, Yahoo became one of the most popular Internet companies in the world. The company was incorporated the following year and was renamed Yahoo. Known worldwide for its search engine, the multinational Internet Corporation offers a wide range of related services such as email, news, finance, groups, advertising, online mapping and social media.

Yahoo currently has a dedicated coverage for the fantasy sports market and was one of the digital media companies that offered fantasy sports products.

In daily fantasy sports, participants play the role of team owners who can choose their own line up of real life athletes who participate in professional sports leagues. The better the statistics of the athlete in real life games, the better are the participant’s chances of winning real money prizes in daily match-ups against other participants. But unlike other online betting games, daily fantasy sports are considered ‘skills games’ and are legal in the United States.

In the past few years, the daily fantasy sports sector continues to grow in popularity in the US. The market is currently dominated by FanDuel and DraftKings with last year’s revenues amounting to $57 million and $30 million respectively.

In line with the goal of launching the new product, Yahoo will look to improve its offering in order to attract new players to the daily sports betting market. This strategy will also enable them to compete in terms of player liquidity and pricing that is currently set by the two leading names in the market. No word has yet been released if the digital media giant will be partnering with a third party to provide them with fantasy sports product or if they will build a stand-alone product.

According to US commentators, Yahoo was very keen to enter the growing fantasy sports market off the back of their comprehensive sports coverage.

Earlier this month, online gaming company Amaya Gaming also expressed its interest in entering the daily fantasy sports market in time for the opening of the new National Football League season.